Top 10 Athletes with the Goofiest Facial Hair in Sports

by DannyGallagherApril 04, 2011 at 10:00AM
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Views: 7,036

Picture this: you’re a multimillion dollar athlete. You have bank accounts filled with cash that you don’t even know about yet. You spend more in a year on golden toilets and bidets that spray authentic German chocolate than most people spend on toilet paper in their entire life. What’s stopping you from buying a decent beard trimmer?

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10. Brian Wilson

It’s rare for an athlete’s beard, moustache, or goatee to give them actual power, but in Wilson’s case, he should at least name it before it tries to get its own agent and steal some of the credit for this closer’s success.

The pitcher’s trademark beard has made him both an object of ridicule and a force to be feared. It’s not hard to see why. His bushy face-warmer gives him the image of a Norse god who throws flaming orbs of molten lava at his enemies. It starts getting goofy when you realize his hair isn’t made of fire and that he’s just a mortal with huge face shrubbery.

9. Clay Zavada

Source: Rick Scuteri/Major League Baseball/Getty Images

Baseball might have been different in its heyday, but it’s not a world any self-respecting fan should want to return to, mainly because of the facial hair.
This Arizona pitcher harkens back to a time when curly-haired nostril ticklers were a sign of manly respect and vitality instead of an aging relic that made people laugh on sight because it reminds them that “National Talk Like a Pirate Day” is just around the corner. His twirly lip mask does just about every time you see it.

8. David Beckham

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It’s hard to know if this soccer star’s choice for a beard was genuine or just a horrid April Fools’ Day prank gone awry. Given the fact that April Fools’ Day was nowhere near in sight, I’m inclined to go with what’s behind door number one, Monty.

The fact that the moustache doesn’t link up with the rest of it and the moustache and the beard don’t have different colors makes me wonder if they were just as conflicted about growing a beard as Beckham seemed to be. The mutton chops meets neck warmer look seemed like a failed attempt to beef up his manliness to the American spectators, which is ironic because soccer as a whole has been trying to do the same thing for years.

7. Bobby Jenks

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There’s been a great movement in recent sports history of players and teams sporting pink apparel on the field to raise awareness about the importance of breast cancer research and eradication and I’m all for it...except in this case.
This ball hurler, who now throws for the Boston Red Sox, became a desktop image for White Sox haters’ computers across the nation when a photographer caught him sporting a goofy cookie duster that made his chin look like it was wearing a pair of hot pink stretch pants that hadn’t been dusted off since the 1980s. It’s very hard to understand the reasoning that went into such a ridiculous decision in personal hygiene, but the best I can manage is that he got tired of people noticing bits of Big League Chew stuck in his man bush so he took a move straight out of the spectral pygmy chameleon's playbook.

6. Alexi Lalas

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Maybe he thought that since no one outside of Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, and Mexico pays attention to soccer that he could get away with this silly chin bumper.
The soccer star turned ESPN analyst spent most of his professional athletic career looking like a surfer Jesus with a goatee that he actually would've tripped himself with if he hadn’t spent so much time looking down at the soccer ball. He has since shaved it off and gone for a more clean cut approach to his looks, mostly because it’s hard to do a broadcast when even the cameras are laughing at your look.

5. Rollie Fingers

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Rollie Fingers' 'stache has become just as big of a legend as the man himself. The two are inseparable, both by metaphor and definition since yanking the roots out would likely cause him and his moustache to beat you to a bloody pulp. He even has a daily regime for trimming and maintaining his famous curly-wurly that seems like it would produce more sweat and tears than the start of spring training.

4. Bill Walton

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He may look like a tall, clean cut, and older but distinguished looking basketballer now, but back in the day, he had a face warmer that made him look like he was from the 1850s long before he reached his 40s.
His trademark red hair gave birth to a huge, bushy beard that made fans wonder if the NBA had drafted him out of the little known Amish farm league in Pennsylvania Dutch country (team name: The Intercourse Barn Raisers). He later admitted to ESPN’s Page 2 that he thought it was so ugly that it “makes Bob Dylan’s beard look good.” Ouch.

3. Drew Gooden

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Technically this forward does layups and dunks for the Milwaukee Bucks, but I’m zeroing in on his days with Chicago because of the style of beard he actually looked at in the mirror and thought, “There’s NO WAY anyone can make fun of me for this.”
Gooden now has a very neat and nice crumb catcher, even though it’s so big that he has to store it in overhead bins when he flies (blame the TSA). For awhile though, he sported a very strange looking chin Snuggie in what can only be described as a “chin crown” style. It’s a good thing that it has since abdicated.

2. Scot Pollard

This player who has since retired from basketball has a lifetime of facial hair faux-pas that could star in their own Bad News Bears sequel. The one he sported during his time in Cleveland gets top billing on the movie poster.
Pollard not only cut his hair down to a point so that it looks like a bird took a golden dump on his head, but he’s fashioned this strange “Mickey Mouse” hat for his chin, like it just got done riding Space Mountain or something. Then again, he is an NBA star and he’s probably had more than man’s fair share of girlfriends and flings, so maybe it’s right that he made it look like it’s been to the Happiest Place on Earth.

1. Michael Jordan

Source: Hanes Clothing

The NBA legend appeared in a series of ads for Hanes (because apparently, you can never have enough money to use as stuffing for pillows) sporting an unusually small philtrum cover under his nose. Everyone kept quiet about it until the subtle observations of Charles Barkley opened the flood gates when he so eloquently quipped, “Hey, Jordan’s sporting a Hitler mustache!” It was quite a shocker at the time. Who knew that Charles Barkley could complete a full sentence?